St Mary’s Catholic Church in Bairnsdale was the perfect setting for an afternoon of chorus, harmony and song last Sunday.
The 27th Choral Festival, celebrating the choirs of East Gippsland, showcased local choirs in front of a church packed with family, friends and music lovers.
The performance began with the audience singing Song Of Joy, a fitting beginning, given the surroundings.
The Harmony Scholars kicked off the choirs with a large mixed choir of men and women, and two medleys. The group was mourning the loss of one of its members overnight and sang in her honour.
La Viva Voce was accompanied by the lovely strains of the flute played by Sue Taylor. The choir sang well-known favourites such as Yesterday by Lennon and McCartney and The Sounds of Silence by Paul Simon.
Rob Latimer and Evan Bryant conducted the Gentlemen’s Choir and were accompanied by Scott Newcomen. The men looked splendid in matching black and gold waistcoats. They sang oldies such as Down by the Riverside and Sweet Caroline, as the audience tapped along. The Gentlemen’s Choir practices on Tuesday nights at Picnic Point Hall and welcomes new members.
The Perry Bridge Singing Group was a surprise guest appearance, appreciated by all those in attendance and applauded with a standing ovation.
The singers are a long way from their homes in Vanuatu as part of the Pacific Australia Labour Mobility scheme (PALM scheme). Their harmonies rose up to reach the angels painted on the church ceiling. “They made me cry,” said Antonia Bale from Metung who was in the audience with her daughter, Tahli Rose. Tahli Rose loved the singing and the paintings in the church.
Afternoon tea gave the audience a chance to talk about the positive effects of group singing over home-made sandwiches, scones and tea.
Following an afternoon tea, the well-loved and long-standing local women’s choir, the Alleycats, performed. The choir included stirring African folk songs in their repertoire and were conducted by Eva Grunden. The Metung Singers filled the church with their moving Capella renditions of Make a Rainbow by Portia Nelson and Autumn Leaves by Joseph Kosma.
JP and the Sweet Notes performed tunes everyone sang such as Who’ll Stop the Rain by John Fogerty, and Don’t be Cruel by Otis Blackwell, accompanied by John Poynton on the guitar and Jesse Moller on the harp.
The Nowa Nowa Men’s Choir, accompanied by John Dorrington on the guitar and Don Milne on the mandolin, encouraged everyone to join in clapping, singing and stomping along to traditional whaling songs.
The Nowa Nowa Men’s choir is starring on the ABC’s Back Roads in early September.
The cheerful audience spilled from the church in the late afternoon, uplifted by an afternoon of community and joyful singing.
